Originally a student of law and medicine at the University of Ferrara, Monti joined the Arcadian Academy, a Neoclassical group, in 1775, and three years later he went to Rome, where as secretary to Cardinal Braschi (1781–97), the pope's nephew, he was equivalent to court poet to Pius VI.

Monti adopted with enthusiasm every political change of his time. Works from his papal period are lavish in their praise of the pope. A poem about a French Republican official who was killed by a Roman mob, In morte di Ugo Bassville (1793; The Penance of Hugo), usually known as Bassvilliana, also praises the pope and warns of the dangers of the French Revolution. Then Napoleon invaded Italy, and his successes converted Monti, who moved to Milan, turned on the papacy, sang the praises of the conqueror, and repudiated his earlier works. Napoleon appointed him professor of poetry at the University of Pavia. When Napoleon fell and the Austrians returned, Monti became enthusiastically pro-Austrian.

Monti also wrote love poetry, three tragedies, some works about language, and a translation from Voltaire. Of his topical works the finest is “Al signor di Montgolfier,” a beautifully written description of a historic balloon ascension in 1783. But his masterpiece, written in fine blank verse, is his Iliade (Iliad) (1810), which remains one of the achievements of the Neoclassical age.